The Democratic Senate candidate in Massachusetts has delivered a series of uneven and confusing responses to revelations that she once listed herself as a minority law teacher, raising questions about whether this is just one blip in a long race or an image-defining moment that undercuts her profile as an authentic populist candidate.

Democrats close to the Warren campaign argue that the more significant development this week has been the fact that she is pummeling the airwaves with $800,000 in ads, pitching herself as a champion of the middle class — and Sen. Scott Brown is not up on TV at the moment.

But privately even some Democrats agree with Republicans that her handling of the situation has damaged her credibility as the rookie candidate tries to introduce herself to voters in the nation’s marquee Senate race.

“I don’t quite get it,” said one veteran Democratic strategist working on 2012 races, adding that the explanation has not quite made sense.

Warren has insisted that she did not cite her Native American ties in order to gain an edge in the legal teaching world, and her campaign released statements from officials at Harvard, and the universities of Pennsylvania, Texas and Houston that said her lineage played no role in their decisions to hire her. And she has tried to turn the questions into accusations that Brown was unfairly questioning her qualifications.

But that failed to quell questions over why she even listed herself as a minority professor in the first place, whether she could produce adequate documentation proving she had tribal ties and why the law directories no longer listed her in that regard after she gained tenure at Harvard.

After the Boston press revealed she listed herself as a minority law teacher for nearly a decade from 1986 to 1995 — and Harvard Law School touted her as a diversity hire in the mid-1990s — even some fellow Ivy League law professors question how she could justifiably list herself as a person with minority roots in a profession that lacks diversity.

“If she is 1/32nd Native American … is it really appropriate to list yourself that way and knowing you will therefore be listed as a minority law professor?” asked William Jacobson, associate clinical professor of Cornell Law School, the author of a blog read in the legal community. “Why in the world would you list yourself when it is such a tenuous and distant relationship?”

“Why would she have done it, and why would she have stopped when she was at Harvard?” Jacobson said. “The whole thing makes no sense.”

No smoking gun has emerged that disproves what she says — that she has never used Native American heritage for professional gain. Yet questions are still lingering nearly a week after the original Boston Herald story, as the drip, drip, drip of information continues on this controversy.

If any new information emerges that firmly contradicts her, she will have a steep fight to re-establish her credibility.

For now, voters who are just tuning in are subjected to a debate within the media over whether Warren is claiming to be something she’s not.